Mission for Md. soldiers unclear with Iraq exit in limbo

Maryland National Guard soldiers are among more than 2,000 troops amassing this holiday weekend to make final preparations to deploy to Iraq for the next 12 months.

Their mission has just one mathematical problem: As of now, all U.S. soldiers are supposed to leave Iraq in less than four months.

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( Aaron C. Davis / WASHINGTON POST ) - Staff Sgt. John Lane prepares to say his goodbye to his wife, Nadine, and their two children, 8-month-old Arian and 2-year-old Anais .

At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, U.S. soldiers will lose their legal protection to operate in the country. Despite general expectations among Americans that a deal for an extension will be struck, intractable Iraqi politics have left Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds unable to agree on if, and how many, U.S. soldiers might be asked to remain.

Tearful goodbyes, such as those last week at Aberdeen Proving Ground, are beginning to drive home for U.S. military families in the Washington region and beyond what until now has been a riddle of recondite Iraqi politics and international diplomacy. Soldiers and their families not only have no way of knowing how and when their tours will end, but they also have less certainty than at any point in recent memory about how dangerous their missions might become.

Radical Shiite groups have promised that any U.S. soldiers who remain in Iraq beyond this year will be targeted for new attacks. Even if Americans fully withdraw in advance of the Jan. 1 deadline, troops will be more exposed as they work to close bases and haul out of Iraq hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment amassed over more than eight years of war.

“As soldiers, we go wherever we are told to go. We just follow orders — it makes it nice and simple,” said Maj. Gen. James A. Adkins, adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard. “The rest is up to the Department of State, the U.S. government, and the requirements and agreements with Iraq.”

A simple task, in theory, but not so much in practice.

As they boarded buses late last week for a flight to Fort Hood, Tex., their final stop before leaving for Iraq, many guardsmen acknowledged that what lies on the other side of Dec. 31 has become a growing concern.

Many of the more than 120 Maryland soldiers will be on their second or third tour to Iraq since 2004. Many are now married; others will leave behind children for the first time. Parents have grown older. Plus, the rough economy has left most fearful of what they may encounter when they return.

Capt. Harris Roscoe said he has told his men not to get bogged down by the uncertainty of what may happen either at home or for their unit after the year-end deadline.

“Our orders are for a 400-day mission. That’s what we’re going to do,” he said, referring to the total time the guardsmen have been told to prepare to be away for training, travel and deployment. “What happens on Dec. 31? After? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

In the days before this weekend’s deployment, Spec. Sara E. Bush of Salisbury was most concerned about another date: Sept. 26, the birthday for her 3-year-old son, Damion, that she will miss. “We had a big, early, pirate-themed birthday party,” she said. “It hasn’t hit me yet.”